Now that we’ve covered the hardware of the 5530 XpressMusic, which is surprisingly good, considering its budget-oriented target market, I want to take a look at the software side of things. This, in my opinion, is where the 5530 XpressMusic really shines, specifically in Nokia’s current touchscreen smartphone lineup.
System
The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, on boot, gives the user roughly 37.7MB of RAM, and over 65MB of internal storage for installing applications and such. It never ceases to amaze me that Nokia’s budget-oriented handsets tend to have much more internal storage and RAM than its flagships do, and the 5530 XpressMusic is no exception. The menus on this little phone are incredibly snappy, likely due, in part, to the reduce number of functions available on the phone. I did, occasionally, experience a slight delay when I touched a button or something, but never more than a split second, and likely something that normal users wouldn’t notice at all.
Menus
As mentioned, menus are quite snappy, and have kinetic scrolling enabled in lists throughout the menu system. This means that, for instance, in the main menu, there is no kinetic scrolling – it works just like the 5800 XpressMusic and N97 (with its current v12 firmware). However, when you launch your contacts, or the music player, those lists are kinetic, and you can flick through them quickly and easily.
Text Input
This is one thing that really floored me on the 5530 XpressMusic. Unlike any other touchscreen phone that Nokia has thus released, the 5530 XpressMusic uses the accelerometer to automatically switch between the portrait standard numeric keypad and the fullscreen QWERTY keyboard. This is how most other touchscreen phones (even feature phones) work, and it’s amazing that Nokia is only just picking up on this. Interestingly enough, the small portrait QWERTY keyboard option has been removed from the 5530 XpressMusic, as has the landscape numeric keypad option. Handwriting recognition is still on board, and it’s still a pain to use.
Annoyingly, there is still no option for predictive text input on the fullscreen QWERTY keyboard, and that’s something I really hope that Nokia adds via firmware update soon. Despite the 5530 XpressMusic having a smaller 2.9-inch display, I found the onscreen keyboards easy to use, and did not have much trouble with wrong keypresses and that sort of thing. Also, the haptic feedback to confirm a button press is nicely implemented.
Contacts
The contacts application on the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is the same-old-same-old, with no noticeable changes. I was finally able to get my Ovi Contacts account sorted out, and it works great on the 5530 XpressMusic as well. This phone also features the Contacts Bar on the homescreen, updated to allow up to 20 contacts. Unfortunately, scrolling through the contacts is a bit misleading. One would expect to be able to drag the bar side to side, in a really smooth motion, hopefully kinetically, too. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. You simply swipe your finger across, and then it shifts to reveal the next 4 contacts. Swipe again for another 4, and so on. It works, but it’s nowhere near as smooth as it could be. There is also still no option to easily detect and add your friends’ Twitter, Facebook, or other feeds – you’ll have to manually add them, which is a complete hassle.
Synchronization
As you would expect, the 5530 XpressMusic is fully supported by Nokia’s PC Suite and Ovi Suite applications, so that you can easily transfer things between the phone and your computer. I personally prefer to use Google Contacts Sync and GooSync via SyncML, both of which work great. Unfortunately, there is still no option to schedule automatic synchronizations when using SyncML, so you’re forced to dig down in the menus to initiate each sync, which is frustrating.
The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic also supports Nokia’s Mail for Exchange application, which allows you to connect to a Microsoft Exchange server for contacts, calendar, and email synchronization.
Gaming
While the 5530 XpressMusic is not supported by Nokia’s N-Gage gaming platform, it does come with a touch-enabled version of Bounce Boing Voyage and an accelerometer-enabled version of Global Race. These both work quite well, though I personally prefer 3rd party games such as SPB Puzzle, which is simply fantastic, and available through the Symbian-Guru store. The phone’s smaller display actually adds a new level of difficulty to SPB Puzzle, which makes it more fun.
Web
The web browser on the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is somewhere between the 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia N97. While it does support kinetic scrolling, it does not, unfortunately, automatically switch to fullscreen mode when a page is through loading, like the N97 does. The browser is quite snappy, even over EDGE, though obviously data takes a bit longer to transfer across. YouTube videos work great, and the bookmarks folder is much more cleaned-up than other devices, without those annoying hard-coded bookmarks.
Music
The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic does a phenomenal job with music, with two basic caveats. First, I was unable to easily find the speakers, which means I wasn’t able to properly position the phone for the best sound quality with them. Of course, this is easily fixed with a pair of headphones or Bluetooth speakers, but it still annoyed me. Also, when the music player is being used, there is a widget that appears on the homescreen, allowing you to play, pause, or skip to the next track. Unfortunately, this widget cannot be used to quickly open the music player. I realize that the XpressMusic button on the front of the phone gives quick access, but I would like to have been able to just touch the widget to get back to my music player, too.
Aside from that, audio quality through the 3.5mm audio port is awesome, as is music played through stereo Bluetooth headphones using A2DP. Music transferred over USB to the phone was a quick process, though you still have to refresh the library, unless you use Media Transfer mode.
Camera
Share Online is preloaded on the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, and Pixelpipe works brilliantly, as expected. Interestingly enough, the camera application has a geolocation setting, though the phone itself has no GPS receiver. The camera loads quickly and takes photos just as quick. The 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera does a great job of trying its best to capture the moment, though it struggles somewhat in ‘busy’ scenes. There is a single LED flash, though it’s pretty much useless for photography – it does make a great video light, however.
Below are some sample photos taken by the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic. It won’t knock your socks off, but it gets the job done.
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Sample Photo - Outdoors Good Lighting
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Sample Photo - Indoors Decent Lighting
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Sample Photo - Indoors, Low Light
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Sample Photo - Indoors, No Light, Flash
Overall, the software on the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is awesome. It’s miles ahead of the 5800 XpressMusic’s current firmware, and even ahead of the Nokia N97 in some ways, which is rather sad, honestly. The 5530 XpressMusic, in my opinion, really shows that Nokia knows what they’re doing in the touchscreen smartphone arena. While it’s not the user experience headliner that the iPhone is, for the price, it’s one of the best touchscreen phones on the market for those that want a touchscreen but don’t necessarily need the extra multimedia features.
